Paris police dismantle camp housing 1,500 migrants

Police in Paris began evacuating a tent camp Friday where some 1,500 migrants were living in unsanitary conditions.

It's the latest operation to dismantle such camps sprouting up around the French capital, AFP reported.

Police moved in at dawn to remove migrants from the encampment in northern Paris. They mainly come from Sudan, Eritrea and Afghanistan and have been sleeping in tents and on mattresses.

Housing Minister Emmanuelle Cosse, who was at the scene Friday morning, said around 1,500 people were at the camp, which had been evacuated once before, on August 17, when 700 people were removed.

"There are a lot of families with children, more than usual. They will obviously be looked after," Cosse told AFP.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo announced last week that the city will open its first refugee camp in mid-October in a bid to take thousands of people off the streets.

Many of those who land in Paris are bound for the port of Calais on the Channel coast, where they hope to stow away on a truck crossing to Britain. The squalid camp of tents and makeshift shelters in Calais, known as The Jungle, is home to some 7,000 migrants but charities say the number might be as high as 10,000 after an influx this summer.